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Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Being a "What If?"

It seems like people from my childhood have been reaching out more lately. I wonder if there's a point in this growing-up business where people feel a touch insecure and look back at where they've come from. If there is, it seems like many people are hitting it. I can't say I'm immune, though I've been having more fun stalking their Facebook profiles than actually meeting up. However, there are exceptions to that. Also, I apologise for the generally romantic mood that this blog is falling into. It seems that as the weather is cooling down, people are looking for love and I'm getting swept up in the mix like fall leaves in the wind.

I met up with a friend that I grew up with the other day at his campus not far from where we grew up. It's a really pretty place, and from certain vantage points you can see Boston. We got hot drinks (neither of us drink coffee) and recalled irritating our teachers and my terrible high school fashion choices. It was a blast from the past-- mostly entertaining, a little cringeworthy, and romantic in the sense that we recalled the bad times as reasonably good, or at the very least a good story.

Eventually, we hit a weird point in the conversation where we acknowledged several things we both thought of but never said prior. He admitted to missing me when I left for Singapore. I admitted I held a torch for him all through my childhood. If I hadn't moved, he and I would have probably dated. We probably would have had our ups and downs, we would have debated, and we would have fought. We were arrogant and obnoxious as high schoolers, and even still we give off an edge of attitude.

It's strange being someone's "What If?" because it's like taking an eraser to ink that's already been dried. Maybe it's possible to smear the edges a little bit, but there's no way to alter what happened already. It's strange how even though we've largely moved on, we occasionally glance over our shoulders at the past and wonder how it could have been different.